it's just a beat-up classical nylon string (Gilb) that I found in a dumpster, I'm mostly just trying to get some skills by jamming out (CAGED style) to some funky tunes like afrobeat and cumbia (basically anything with a poly rhythm vibe)
I also have some funky midi controllers (hexagon keyboard thing that uses a harmonic table layout and a newer Striso board that is MPE capable) that I like to mess with to get better understanding of theory and such
I'm mostly just a jazz/theory hobbiest, so I just try to get a handle on how things 'work' and then experiment based on what I can grasp of the concepts
since I jumped to linux, I setup Carla with Surge (it has some decent MPE instruments to use with the Striso)
mostly just for midi jamming, haven't had the time/focus to actually record/produce much in the last few years - but I also really want to get into live-looping
I was always hoping to use a PC to get a cool live-looping setup going, but after all the fiddling I tried to get it working I've kinda resigned to just getting a basic loop pedal to start playing with (hopefully in the near future)
if you have any looping knowledge, any recs are appreciated
Aside from the usual "try Ableton," looping is a new thing for me as well. Drummer is a huge fan of loops and loopers. I have experience with a few looping pedals, but I'm personally kinda still getting the hang of it myself. I can definitely say that if money isn't a factor, I once had an EHX 228800 that I absolutely loved. I used that mostly as a sample trigger though, I'd load up the SD card with soundscapes I'd create and stuff, and play over those. Nowawadays I'm using both a Boss Loop Station and a DL4 (the old one, not the new one) in the same way.
It's a fun lil device. It has a built in instrument so you don't need a PC or anything to play stuff. It also has opensource firmware so other instruments might be available eventually.
Just looked and there's a new firmware on the github: https://github.com/striso/striso-control-firmware/releases/tag/v2.2.0
So the update took me like 2 minutes, and now I'm messing around with 31 TET mode!
Hell yeah that's awesome, very neat that you can firmware update new sounds and it isn't just a plain controller. I've long been interested in getting a weird MPE controller like a roli seaboard or the extremely hilarious eigenharp.
Also damn you're on that microtonal shit, that rules. This album by Brendan Byrnes and this album by Syzygys are my go to examples of rad microtonal music if I ever need to show anyone. That Brendan Byrnes album uses a different tuning for each of its nine songs and Syzygys specialized in making weird Japanese pop music with Harry Partch's 43-tone scale. Syzygys seems to have been somewhat nuked from youtube but Fauna Grotesque is the nastiest (nasty in the good way) example of microtonal shit in general that I've ever heard. Maybe you'd like it or at least find it interesting! I'm ultra open to any 31-tet music or any other recommendations you might have.
This is cool stuff! I stumbled into xenharmonics/microtonal stuff via tuning theory exploration, which ultimately led me to some of these weird niche midi controllers (isomorphic). I've always really enjoyed genre/style crossing music, so when I started exploring things like Gamelan and Turkish tunings and such, I just had to try to understand it.
The other entry point for me was Wendy Carlos 'Beauty in the Beast' which seems to be hard to find these days. I also checked out Sevish for some interesting selections. I recall there was a really cool website on the release of Micropangea!
I haven't really looked into this stuff in few years, but it seems there's a good bit of cool stuff being made now.
Thanks to your comment I came across the revamped xenharmonic wiki page: https://en.xen.wiki/
I found this really fun browser instrument thing there: https://fritzo.org/keys/#style=piano
There's even a xen rhythms wiki too for all kinds of odd time sigs and such.
I'm, really going down the rabbit hole now lol
The synths on this page really are wild: https://www.dynamictonality.com/synths.htm I briefly experimented with 'The Viking' a long time ago.
three Dynamic Tonality synthesizers, each of which uses a different technique of sound synthesis. They all use the same set of Dynamic Tonality controls and support a wide range of microtonal tunings that can be smoothly morphed between. Furthermore, their timbres can be matched to the underlying tuning.
it's just a beat-up classical nylon string (Gilb) that I found in a dumpster, I'm mostly just trying to get some skills by jamming out (CAGED style) to some funky tunes like afrobeat and cumbia (basically anything with a poly rhythm vibe)
I also have some funky midi controllers (hexagon keyboard thing that uses a harmonic table layout and a newer Striso board that is MPE capable) that I like to mess with to get better understanding of theory and such
I'm mostly just a jazz/theory hobbiest, so I just try to get a handle on how things 'work' and then experiment based on what I can grasp of the concepts
Hell yeah, thats awesome! What DAW and VSTs do you use with the MIDI controller? If any?
since I jumped to linux, I setup Carla with Surge (it has some decent MPE instruments to use with the Striso)
mostly just for midi jamming, haven't had the time/focus to actually record/produce much in the last few years - but I also really want to get into live-looping
I was always hoping to use a PC to get a cool live-looping setup going, but after all the fiddling I tried to get it working I've kinda resigned to just getting a basic loop pedal to start playing with (hopefully in the near future)
if you have any looping knowledge, any recs are appreciated
Aside from the usual "try Ableton," looping is a new thing for me as well. Drummer is a huge fan of loops and loopers. I have experience with a few looping pedals, but I'm personally kinda still getting the hang of it myself. I can definitely say that if money isn't a factor, I once had an EHX 228800 that I absolutely loved. I used that mostly as a sample trigger though, I'd load up the SD card with soundscapes I'd create and stuff, and play over those. Nowawadays I'm using both a Boss Loop Station and a DL4 (the old one, not the new one) in the same way.
Woah the striso board looks very fun, haven't seen one before. MPE controllers are really cool
It's a fun lil device. It has a built in instrument so you don't need a PC or anything to play stuff. It also has opensource firmware so other instruments might be available eventually.
Just looked and there's a new firmware on the github: https://github.com/striso/striso-control-firmware/releases/tag/v2.2.0
So the update took me like 2 minutes, and now I'm messing around with 31 TET mode!
Hell yeah that's awesome, very neat that you can firmware update new sounds and it isn't just a plain controller. I've long been interested in getting a weird MPE controller like a roli seaboard or the extremely hilarious eigenharp.
Also damn you're on that microtonal shit, that rules. This album by Brendan Byrnes and this album by Syzygys are my go to examples of rad microtonal music if I ever need to show anyone. That Brendan Byrnes album uses a different tuning for each of its nine songs and Syzygys specialized in making weird Japanese pop music with Harry Partch's 43-tone scale. Syzygys seems to have been somewhat nuked from youtube but Fauna Grotesque is the nastiest (nasty in the good way) example of microtonal shit in general that I've ever heard. Maybe you'd like it or at least find it interesting! I'm ultra open to any 31-tet music or any other recommendations you might have.
This is cool stuff! I stumbled into xenharmonics/microtonal stuff via tuning theory exploration, which ultimately led me to some of these weird niche midi controllers (isomorphic). I've always really enjoyed genre/style crossing music, so when I started exploring things like Gamelan and Turkish tunings and such, I just had to try to understand it.
The other entry point for me was Wendy Carlos 'Beauty in the Beast' which seems to be hard to find these days. I also checked out Sevish for some interesting selections. I recall there was a really cool website on the release of Micropangea!
I haven't really looked into this stuff in few years, but it seems there's a good bit of cool stuff being made now.
Thanks to your comment I came across the revamped xenharmonic wiki page: https://en.xen.wiki/ I found this really fun browser instrument thing there: https://fritzo.org/keys/#style=piano
There's even a xen rhythms wiki too for all kinds of odd time sigs and such.
I'm, really going down the rabbit hole now lol
The synths on this page really are wild: https://www.dynamictonality.com/synths.htm I briefly experimented with 'The Viking' a long time ago.